


Blood on the Border

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestors, Asphyxiation, M/M, Rape, Violence, non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 14:22:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calmly, the Highblood says that if Dualscar can’t draw a laugh from him, he’ll be heading out to sea with a distinct lack of horns.</p><p>Any other troll would be tasting the end of the Orphaner’s harpoon at that threat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood on the Border

**Author's Note:**

> The result of a tumblr prompt.

.  
.  
.

He’s a hypocrite.

A hypocrite and a filthy liar.

He’s a dread pirate, the infamous Orphaner Dualscar.

A heartless bastard and a complete coward.

Too often he leaves his ship, his crew, goes for long walks along the beach by himself, dwelling on the sort of things that no one ought to. He visits his kismesis and sneers at her, warns her twice over that if she takes one more troll to bed he’ll slice her open, gut to gullet, and drape her pretty, slender skeleton over the bow of his ship for show.

She laughs in his face every goddamn time.

She boils his blood and sets him out on the seas hungrier than before, always looking for something more to fill up the empty space clawing around his insides. He knows what’d fill it up proper, he just can’t get his hands on it.

No number of partners on the side will sate him, and every name added to the growing list gives Mindfang more reason to loosen the strings of her own bodice.

He is jealous, always, and when the taste of another’s mouth doesn’t offer the distraction he craves, he looks elsewhere.

Some nights he drinks. It’s an embarrassment, to be sure.

Other nights he simply dreams.

Tyrian purple swims in his mind, a cool smile not meant for him. He never meets the Condesce in person.

He sees her officers on a regular basis, relays information through them and is granted another sweep of free reign over the seas.

It’s hardly piracy if you’ve got approval from the highest authority but it’s all hush hush, under the table. The empire won’t publicly condone piracy, but if it suits her Condescension’s needs, there’s no way the practice will be stopped.

From across the vast pool of the royal court, Dualscar watches her as she passes judgment, makes decrees. She leans from her throne and whispers to the troll nearest her, and he announces her decisions in a booming voice.

She will not speak to commoners. She will not speak to him, even.

But he watches her tap her fingers against the arms of her throne, barely touching the surface of it, nearly floating, and his heart is in a vice.

Anything she demands of him, indirect though it may be, he jumps at the chance.

Mindfang laughs at him for this too, asks if he fancies himself a potential matesprit for the Condesce.

Her mocking comments bring color to his face faster than a burst of icy sea air and he wishes he could stab her for it. But then where would he be? Even more alone.

When the Condesce declares that negotiations must be made with the Subjugglators, few are keen to take on the task.

Dualscar steps forward.

He isn’t afraid, honest he’s not. He’s dealt with that Indigo cult, has cut a deal or two with them in the past. They operate in many of the same circles, sell the same wears. Need a lusus killed? Send for Orphaner Dualscar. Need anything killed? Seek a subjugglator.

Nasty bastards, that bunch.

Though it goes without saying that the Grand Highblood is the nastiest of them all.

 

Carved into a cliff face, the Grand Highblood’s castle is enormous, intimidating, a match for the troll himself. Dualscar docks his ship at the Subjugglators’ personal port and tells his crew to stay put and keep quiet.

He keeps his cloak tight around him when he visits the Highblood’s lair. He’d hate to have his bones stolen right out of his chest cavity, and he wouldn’t put it past them.

The smell of sea salt still lingers deep in the Highblood’s throne room, though it’s barely perceptible under the heavy scent of wet stone and blood. The Orphaner’s gills promptly shut against the stench of it and he holds his head high, curls his lip at the masked and painted trolls that ogle him as he passes by. Their blood is a tinge too blue to set foot on the dais. They lurk in the corners of the throne room, cleaning their clubs, muttering to each other and laughing darkly.

The Grand Highblood sits silent on his throne, passes a tiny bone over and under the fingers of one hand, quick as a minnow. When Dualscar steps onto the dais he bows his head, a brief show of respect for a troll of lower blood but almost certainly greater strength, and the Highblood sets aside the bone in his hand.

Dualscar announces himself, explains the purpose of his visit, the negotiations that must be made on behalf of the Condesce.

The Highblood listens with vague interest before nodding, smiling slowly. His painted face is vivid white, a grinning skull set against a backdrop of wild hair.

He stands from his throne and asks Dualscar if he’d like to join him for dinner.

He would be a fool to refuse.

 

In a separate chamber, they sit at a surprisingly modest table and discuss the matters at hand.

The beginnings of a revolution are stirring in lowblood settlements on the outskirts of the Alternian mainland. The Condesce is not overly concerned. She is seldom riled up by much of anything, but word of a mysterious prophet spreading a message of peace has tried at her patience. She would like the Subjugglators to put an end to this nonsense before it grows into a movement.

The Grand Highblood seems intrigued. He’s quieter than Dualscar would have expected, speaking more with the slight tilt of his mouth, the arch of his brows.

When he asks if the Subjugglators can be trusted with their task, the Highblood’s wide smile cracks a sharp, slightly yellow streak through the white of his makeup.

He won’t answer, instead insists that Dualscar tell him a joke.

He has never been much of a comedian to be honest, and he tells the Highblood this.

Calmly, the Highblood says that if Dualscar can’t draw a laugh from him, he’ll be heading out to sea with a distinct lack of horns.

Any other troll would be tasting the end of the Orphaner’s harpoon at that threat.

He wets his lips with the barest hint of nerves, sets aside his knife and fork and wracks his brain for an acceptable joke.

A familiar one shared among his shipmates springs to mind.

 

Where do you find a lowblood with no legs?

Right where you left him.

 

His last word hangs in the air, set to sink like a stone, and he swallows thickly.

The Highblood leans slightly forward, smiles in an open-mouthed whisp of noise that’s very nearly a laugh, sounds more like a dying breath.

Dualscar clutches his dinner knife, readies himself for a fight.

 

A log, a boulder, and a lowblood are thrown off a cliff.

 

The smile on the Highblood’s face is nearly giddy. Dualscar raises a brow, keeps his hold on the knife.

 

Which hits the ground first?

 

Dualscar has no idea.

 

WHO CARES!?

 

The Highblood roars at his own joke and, despite himself, Dualscar snorts out a laugh too.

A few minutes later, once the Highblood has gotten control of himself, he reaches across the table and offers Dualscar his hand. It’s a rare gesture, especially among such an uncivilized group of ruffians, and the Orphaner cannot help but be a bit impressed.

He shakes the Grand Highblood’s hand and it is clear that they’ve reached an understanding.

 

When the Condesce’s most trusted general approaches Dualscar in the shipyard and asks if he might consider another meeting with the leader of the Subjugglators, informs him that his presence has been specifically requested, he agrees smugly.

He is much too full of himself when he tells his crew that yes, he will be meeting with the Highblood again and no, it is really no great matter.

He is more than a pirate, he is a very important man.

They meet for dinner and talk about business.

The prophet in question is gaining followers rapidly. Still, the Condesce is hardly perturbed. Word has it she has ordered the royal jester be made a cloak to match that of the mysterious rebel leader, so that he can do a hilarious impression of the so called Signless in full costume.

Word also has it that she had the royal jester impaled and put on display outside her hive for no discernible reason.

It’s a lot of rumors and nonsense and the Orphaner doesn’t pay it much mind.

The Highblood tells him that his brothers haven’t caught up to the prophet yet, but that they have gathered a few who sat in for one of his sermons. They had some semi-useful information, which he does not want to share only because he is a capricious pain in the ass.

Dualscar doesn’t press the matter.

They talk about the Condesce’s new plan to quash the rebellion and when they’ve exhausted all topics relating to the mission at hand, they simply talk.

They talk about their collective scars.

They talk about quadrants, and as it turns out the Highblood has none of them filled. He tells Dualscar his theories on the quadrant system, how pointless it is, and that when the Vast Honk sounds, the lines will fall. There’ll be no need for a romantic system and every troll will get their sick fucking feelings on with whoever they want, with everyone they want.

Dualscar scoffs. That would be a mess.

The Highblood leers at him.

He says nothing more on the matter.

They have a drink and take a walk through the caverns, to a spacious cave with a gaping hole that shows the sky, the bright stars overhead. The Highblood calls this his garden, though there’s hardly a plant in sight. Instead he’s got these odd statues and paintings positioned about, all of trolls with sweeping sets of wings.

He asks if the Highblood is fond of fairy tales, only slightly mocking as he slurs the words.

No, he says, not fairy tales.

And he looks so serious that Dualscar has to try hard not to laugh.

It becomes easier as the humor fades from him, as the Highblood reaches out to flick a claw very, very lightly against one of his fins. He jerks away from the touch and readies himself once again for a fight, curses his own poor judgement in ever accepting the other’s offer for a drink.

But the Highblood just laughs at him, first booming, bone shaking, then quiet, and declares in a grandiose burst of volume that once, long ago, sea dwelling trolls were merely mutants.

MUTANTS.

And it’s the mutants that are the most FASCINATING, the ones that slip through the system and live to pass their genes along.

They are MIRACLES, miracles of evolution.

It’s the mutants who make a difference.

He smiles softly to himself and Dualscar bristles, says he’s no mutant.

The Highblood looks to his fins, to the wisps of violet streaking his hair in one spot, meets his eyes.

The Orphaner snarls and the Highblood looks away, laughing uproariously again.

By the time he leaves the Subjugglators lair, Dualscar has put the incident behind him. He heads back to his ship, his crew, his kismesis, who has seen her own fair share of frustration tonight and wishes to work out a few of her more aggressive tendencies.

He is, overall, satisfied.

 

When he meets with the Highblood again it is to discuss the matter of the Signless.

As it turns out, the Condesce would rather that he not be killed just yet. His followers are fair game, certainly, but the prophet himself, she would like to see executed in person.

He is fast becoming a thorn in her side.

He tells the Highblood this and the Subjugglator just grins sideways, says he’d like to jab a few thorns in the Signless’ side.

Dualscar reminds him that he doesn’t even know the guy.

Yet, the Highblood qualifies, doesn’t know him yet. But he’s heard some interesting rumors.

The blood color thing? Dualscar has heard whispers of that himself. There are suggestions that the Signless bleeds something unnatural, something far off the spectrum. The very idea is appalling to the Orphaner, but the fascination in the Highblood’s eyes is clear. He’s nearly salivating at the thought of an entirely new color spattered on his throne room walls.

Bloody mutants, Dualscar mutters, disgusted.

Bloody mutants indeed.

The Highblood laughs like a crack of thunder.

Dualscar scowls his distaste, warns the Subjugglator that he’d best keep his hands to himself unless he’d like an abdominal cavity full of imperial trident.

His laughter peters out to a soft, mellow thing. He promises that, should he get a hold of the Signless, he will only hurt him a bit.

A Very.

Little.

Bit.

 

But the Signless is proving to be a wily creature, somehow always two steps ahead, and no one has been able to locate him as of yet.

Which simply means that the Condesce’s desire to see him captured is growing, that Orphaner Dualscar must be sent to the Subjugglator’s lair more and more often, to trade information with the Highblood heading the endless search for this prophet of peace.

It isn’t such a bad deal. The Highblood is grimly entertaining, with his miracle science and disturbing hobbies. He feeds Dualscar well, offers him all the luxuries of his own hive.

The two of them spend more than a few meetings sitting for hours, sharing tales of the hunt, the kill, drinking and laughing.

The Highblood’s roar of a laugh is contagious, and Dualscar finds himself laughing far, far too loud when in the other’s company.

He finds himself in an interesting position, an unfamiliar one. He thinks the two of them might share some sort of understanding, that he might be becoming the Grand Highblood’s friend.

Conversations about the Signless last only moments, lead into other matters entirely that keep the Orphaner out till sunlight, so he has to keep to the shadows and edges of things on his way back to port.

He stays the day once, twice, when it’s too bright to travel. The guest quarters are perfectly adequate.

He views the Highblood’s collection of war masks, each hideous and painstaking in its carved details, stained with a full rainbow of blood.

All but one, which he says he’s saving.

For what, Dualscar doesn’t know.

He tries to invite the Highblood onto his ship, if only for the fun of witnessing the terror that would come over his crew at the sight of the Subjugglator, but he politely refuses.

He is not fond of the ocean, he explains, and when the Orphaner laughs and asks if he can even swim, the Highblood roars at him.

The ocean is DANGEROUS and only FOOLS would dare to DIP THEIR CLAWS in its TREACHOROUS waves.

 

He is not the easiest person to talk to.

But when it comes down to it they can have a pleasant conversation. More than pleasant. The Orphaner will not deny a sadistic streak within himself, thinks it’s a healthy thing for any of the higher caste to have, and listening to the Highblood whisper and shout his way through a harrowing tale that always, always ends in bloodshed is a bit thrilling.

Killing trolls is more personal than killing lusi. The great beasts are a challenge to be sure, an exciting sort of prey, but crushing the life from one of your own, slicing throats on a daily basis sounds like something else entirely.

Dualscar has killed before, when necessary. Never for fun.

They discuss the matter over a game of cards. It is a pirate’s pastime, something foreign to the Subjugglating set, and Dualscar has to explain the rules twice.

When put into terms of bounty, which cards will fetch points the way heads might, he grins in understanding.

Dualscar throws down a card, swipes another off the pile.

He scoffs at the Highblood’s assertion that seadwellers are, in fact, easier to kill than sturdy land dwelling trolls. It’s poppycock. Nonsense.

The Highblood smirks and sets down his own hand, splays the cards over the table in no organized pattern. He holds his hands out loose, gentle, like he might be waiting to catch a moth on his very palm.

May I?

At first Dualscar doesn’t understand the question, but once the Highblood tightens his fingers in the air it makes sense. He gives the other a suspicious look up, down, nods.

From what he understands, Subjugglators place more trust in one another than most trolls, more trust than anyone really should. They practice fighting techniques on each other, going a step further than any normal sparring, and though it ruffles his fins a bit to step into such a role, Dualscar swallows his pride and his cultural differences and gives the Highblood the benefit of the doubt.

No matter what, he’s still got a blade up his sleeve.

Fingers close around his throat, barely touching, and the Highblood’s grip reaches all the way around his neck. He is a large troll, isn’t he?

He applies the slightest pressure, explains in hushed tones that the difference is-

The difference is this.

If you were to choke any land dwelling troll, you’d find their muscles put up more than a fair fight. They’ve only got one way to breathe, see, and their throats are strong to support that.

His fingers slide, press just under the Orphaner’s gills and they both wait, the moment of stillness gripping, more suffocating than any attempt to strangle the life right out of him.

Sea trolls, he says, have gills, and this changes things.

There’s a whole system at work under the skin of a sea dwelling troll, paper thin muscle and even though those gills have to work harder under water, they’re so sensitive

so fragile.

His claws just barely trace the folded skin of the Orphaner’s gills. He breathes out a laugh, so quiet Dualscar can hardly hear it.

He tells the Highblood that his theory makes no scientific sense whatsoever.

The hands at his throat tighten, just for a second, before leaving his skin entirely.

The Highblood sighs, almost dreamy, and his breath is hot, smells of wine.

Either way, he says, it’s true. Not that he particularly likes to strangle people. He’s more of a butcher in his methods, breaking bones, tearing and slicing.

He likes to paint the walls with his prey, drag them screaming into nightmare visions and make them beg for death.

He doesn’t move any further away, and that too is suffocating. He leans in close, makes Dualscar move instinctively, prepare to strike out in defense, and then he thanks him for his cooperation.

The Highblood kisses him, like a friend, like a brother, and when Dualscar doesn’t move away or bite his very tongue off, he kisses him like a lover.

Dualscar pushes him away much, much too late, sneers at him for being a letch and a twisted excuse for a troll. He tells the Highblood that he already has a kismesis, has no need for a matesprit like him. He refuses to be dragged into that blurred quadrant filth the Highblood is always spewing.

The Highblood kisses him again and he only lets it go on for a brief moment. A few minutes.

When the other’s nails rake the skin under his tunic, Dualscar puts his foot down.

The Highblood chuckles at him, tells him to stop being

so

HIGH

strung.

Dualscar hisses in his face, a sound that would reverberate under water, bubble to the surface in a violent threat.

Here it echoes out into caverns like nothing.

The Orphaner leaves on a sour note.

 

 

When he is called to the palace and ordered to visit the Highblood again, this time with written instructions, with hand painted portraits of those closest to the Signless, so that the Subjugglators can better identify them, Dualscar grudgingly agrees.

Not that he really has any choice in the matter.

The Condesce glances his way from across her throne room and it makes his chest tighten, leaves him sick as she looks away again, signing death warrants like they’re nothing.

Should he fail to do her bidding, one of those could be his.

He rolls the paintings up with the written decree and carries them safely inside his cloak, braves the rain to reach the Subjugglator’s cave.

The Highblood is surprised to see him, but pleased as well. He says he’d thought maybe he scared the Orphaner off after their last conversation.

Dualscar scoffs at him.

He does not scare easily.

At that the Highblood laughs and laughs, grips the armrests of his throne until he stops and looks down at Dualscar on the dais, looks him dead in the eyes.

He says he’ll have to try harder.

Then he starts laughing again and from there it’s business as usual.

They move to his personal quarters, away from the roaring, laughing, honking of the other Subjugglators. Dualscar lays out the portraits, explains each of the characters before them.

The Highblood nods along, all seriousness when there are trolls to be culled. He studies their faces, all artists’ renderings, approximations of real people. He traces the curve of the horn on the girl known only as The Disciple, just with the edge of one claw, and tells Dualscar that this lot are boring. Predictable. He can guess at the fear in their hearts and he’s never even met them.

He wants to see the Signless.

There is no portrait to be seen, only vague secondhand descriptions. Shaggy hair, small horns, a voice that soothes even when raised to a shout.

It isn’t much to go on.

If only, the Highblood says with a smirk, they had mutant smelling beasts.

He looks at Dualscar with that accusatory glance again and the Orphaner can only hold his head high, curl his lip in disapproval.

Come now, the Highblood chides, what did he say about being so high strung? So UPTIGHT?

How about a joke?

Dualscar turns down the offer. They have more business from the Condesce to attend to. He lays out the written instructions, rolls his eyes when the Highblood declares that he’s not wasting his time reading anything, and simply reads them aloud.

By order of the Condesce, the Subjugglators are to cease all other culling efforts and focus on hunting the Signless.

He may not be harmed.

Should any ounce of his blood be spilled, the Condesce will take personal action against those responsible.

Dualscar looks up from the parchment, watches the Highblood seethe, and continues down the page.

Furthermore, and of lesser consequence, there is word of a yellow blooded psychic traveling with the prophet. He is property of the Imperial Fleet, an escapee of service, and it is requested that he be left at least largely unharmed.

Dualscar doesn’t understand the second order. Deserters are commonly culled on sight. The Condesce’s care with this lowblood Psionic makes him wonder what her angle is.

It makes him jealous for ridiculous reasons that he cannot entirely fathom.

He sets the paper down and moves to the Highblood’s side, studying the yellow blood’s portrait with him.

Two sets of horns. Completely unnatural.

The Highblood comments that the Signless must be fond of freaks, if he is collecting them like this.

He leers, but it is not directed at Dualscar, so the Orphaner settles in, comfortable enough to laugh and jeer along as the other begins making jokes about how he might like to break the Psiionic’s smaller set of horns off, says which soft points in his body he might reintroduce them.

Dualscar offers some advice on dealing with psychics, his experience with the Marquise Spinneret useful in this case. He names no names, god knows she’s got enemies, but he warns the Highblood of the possibility of mind control, manipulation.

You never can trust a lowblood, not when they’ve got some power behind them.

The Highblood counters that you can’t trust anyone but your own. Dualscar supposes he is referring to his brothers, but he can’t imagine placing his trust in any of those cackling maniacs.

He is a fool for putting as much faith in the Highblood as he already has, and he tells him so.

Which makes him laugh.

Typical.

So there is no trust between them, then?

Dualscar hesitates.

He is unsure, he admits. He cannot decide whether the Highblood is a friend, an enemy…something in between. It is hard to trust someone when your relationship with them is so unclear.

Well, the Highblood says, shrugs his shoulders in a smooth, sweeping wave of smug, he sees no point in drawing such lines. But if he must

MAYBE

he should

SHOW HIM

exactly

WHERE

to put

HIS TRUST.

There is a hand at the Orphaner’s jaw, pressing, holding, not violent but too dominating. The Highblood kisses him like before and he tastes nothing like wine, everything like stone and heavy metals.

He tastes of blood even before either of them are wounded, and once Dualscar’s own lip is split in a frenzy of teeth and tongue, the sensation sharpens, highlighted by his own color, flavor.

The Highblood presses him back against the edge of the table with enough effort to bruise his hips. His hands skid on parchment when he seeks purchase on the tabletop, come back smelling of barely set oils and turpentine as he makes to push the Highblood off him.

The other’s larger hands wrap around his wrists, hold him steady as he bends him back uncomfortably. He laughs against Dualscar’s mouth, murmurs that the knife up his sleeve is awfully tricky of him.

The weapon is removed, tossed aside, and Dualscar thinks of the others he has hidden around his person as the Highblood tears the stitching of his tunic. The hands on his chest are just a touch warmer than his own, welcoming even when they dig their claws in, and he carries on a fierce mental debate while the Highblood entertains himself licking the salt from his gills.

This could be easy. It could even be fun.

But the Highblood’s intentions are clear in their ambiguity. He is no kismesis, no matesprit, and while Dualscar is no stranger to pleasures of the flesh, he has never taken a troll to bed without even the slightest inclination to occupy a quadrant.

He is, for lack of a better term, a hopeless romantic. Anyone he meets in the back of a pub may well be the matesprit he never knew, everyone has the potential to hold his flushed heart in the palm of their hand.

But the hands undressing him have no attachment to him, no amorous affection behind them, and the whole matter sets his spine on edge. The departure from a familiar system, a set of expectations, unsettles him, and as responsive as his pulse is to the wet stroke of the Highblood’s tongue, he cannot in good conscious let this go on.

He bites the Highblood, flares his fins, and when the other leans away, sweeps up the blood seeping from the deep marks just right of his mouth, tells him to stop. He is being idiotic, scurrilous, disgusting.

And he, the Highblood says, mocking, is still being

too

FUCKING

uptight.

The Highblood kisses him again, laughs right into the kiss when Dualscar snarls, bites, struggles. He tries to kick the Subjugglator’s legs out from under him, wriggle free of his grasp, but he’s as strong a troll as one would expect, his size an advantage.

The Highblood mocks him further, mimics his attack by sweeping his legs out from under him, sending him sprawling. He spins the Orphaner like a marionette, shoves him down against the hard oak of the table and when he reaches for the knife in his boot, the Highblood grabs his hand, too hard, too too hard, and one of his fingers makes a sickening snapping sound.

He holds Dualscar’s arms tight behind his back in one hand, bending him over the table and it is humiliating, horrifying. The Orphaner Dualscar should be able to handle this. He has killed whales before and he cannot handle this.

Then again, whales don’t think the way a troll does, don’t laugh long, loud, lean in close to trace the edges of his fins with their tongue, whisper that he is so very afraid.

The weapons at his disposal are more or less useless when he cannot free his arms, when the Highblood wraps a hand around his throat and presses his face hard against the tabletop. He can see the portrait of the yellow blooded psychic in his peripheral vision, the shy scowl on the painted face making his blood boil even more than the cruel laughter behind him.

The image blurs before his very eyes as the Highblood tightens his grip, wedges his fingers right over the Orphaner’s gills and squeezes, laughs quieter as his face goes violet, louder when he loosens his grip and leaves Dualscar gasping for air.

He presses his body close, rocks his hips, and asks if Dualscar would like to hear a joke.

He only gets curses, violent, threatening, nasty seaman’s curses in response, but tells one anyway as he sweeps the Orphaner’s cloak aside, drags his trousers down.

 

What do you call a helpless troll bent over your table?

ANYTHING YOU FUCKING WANT.

 

The Orphaner maintains at least a bit of his dignity. He grits his teeth when the Highblood thrusts into him, keeps every last noise locked and bottled up, will not laugh when the other demands it. He bites the inside of his mouth till he tastes blood, spits it out onto the portrait of the Psionic, sneers at his double horns and ludicrous eyes and tries to block out the sound of the Highblood’s heavy breathing, accented by sharp laughs, cutting comments.

Such a position, he’s in.

So undignified, so

SO

disheveled, so

INSIGNIFICANT.

The Orphaner growls low in his throat. He refuses to believe it. As debased as he may be, he cannot think of himself as insignificant.

He is a dread pirate, an infamous killer, and he will not go down without a fight. He squirms, bucks, cracks the Highblood squarely in the face with the side of his head and it makes his ears ring.

For a moment the Highblood is very still, holding him down and taking in a slow, seething breath.

He shoves the Orphaner roughly against the tabletop, tightens the grip on his arms. He scrapes his face against the surface and that fucking psychic’s portrait slices a paper thin cut into his cheek. He butts his head down, clashes their horns together and it’s an awful, screeching noise, a sharp pain that shoots right to the core. He traps Dualscar’s horns against his own, drives the sharpened tips into the table.

He grips the Orphaner’s hip with his free hand and drives into him, growls something fierce, digs his nails in deep enough to earn a sharp hiss of pain.

Everything burns, right up to his gills, and when the Highblood groans his release, disentangles their horns and bites down hard on his shoulder, his fangs sting even through a layer of fabric.

Good that he didn’t place any great trust in him, he chuckles, pats the bruised, bleeding area of Dualscar’s hip.

He pulls out and takes a step back, steps back further still when Dualscar whips around to face him, fins puffed out to their full width, fangs bared.

They square off as if to fight, then, with a shuddering breath, the Orphaner plants a hand on the table behind him and drops his stance.

He’s flushed, bloodied and aching, sickened, and he isn’t allowed to kill the troll before him.

He is expendable, but the Highblood is not. He is expected to drag the Signless out of whatever dark corner he’s hiding in. If he were to kill the son of a bitch now, the Condesce would have his head for sure.

He redresses himself as smoothly as he can manage, fights off the urge to take the knife from his boot and stab, slash, tear the Highblood to pieces. He refastens his cloak and snarls that their business here is done.

He stalks out of the Highblood’s lair and only allows himself to limp once he is back outside, trudging through rain to reach his ship.

He ignores the questions of his crew, the taunting calls of his kismesis when they set back out to sea.

He stays well away from the Subjugglators, from the Imperial palace.

 

 

Weeks later, when he receives word that the Subjugglators have discovered a lead and will not share it with the Condesce’s generals, Dualscar ignores the message.

He wants nothing to do with it.

In a few nights time, several blue bloods board his ship. They order him, in the name of her Imperial Condescension, to gather information from the Grand Highblood.

He is at the end of his rope.

He shoos them off with a promise that he will follow through on his orders, asks that they send his regards to the Condesce.

He knows that they will not.

 

Dualscar is not proud when he chooses a member of his crew to take his place.

One of his gunners, a broad shouldered greenblood, is only slightly horrified to be selected. He hides his discomfort well, simply nods to the Orphaner before disembarking.

But not even an hour passes before he returns, visibly shaken, paler than Dualscar has ever seen him. He wrings his hands a bit, clears his throat, pulls the Orphaner aside to tell him that the Highblood will not see him.

He will only speak to Dualscar himself.

Flushing, furious, the Orphaner scrawls out a letter, an explanation that this troll will serve as his messenger tonight, hands it off to the gunner and tells him to haul his ass back up to the Subjugglator’s throne room.

The greenblood looks like he has been forced to swallow a stone, but he takes the letter in his sweating palm, nods again.

He leaves and for an hour, two, three, no one sets foot on the beach.

Finally, when daylight threatens, someone descends the series of bridges and paths leading to the Subjugglator’s cave.

It’s one of the Highblood’s brothers, a lean troll with curling horns. His smile extends beyond his fangs, painted high up on his cheeks, and he waves cheerily with a bloodied hand.

He drops something on the deck below before turning round and starting back up the cliffs.

Something long and thin and drenched in green.

A spinal column.

 

There is a note attached to the spine of his former gunner, Dualscar discovers, when he swallows back his nausea and sends the cabin boy to fetch it for him.

It is written in the poor bastard’s blood, in thin, scratchy letters.

 __

-

A gift,

SINCE YOU SEEM TO HAVE LOST YOUR OWN.

It's a joke.

You ought to know I only have eyes for you,

friend.

 __-

 

He instructs his crew to throw the bones overboard.

 

He leaves the Highblood’s port with no plans to return, and god help him if he has to.

He accepts the fact that he will never see the Condesce again, accepts that she will probably have a bounty on his head by dawn, that he will lose the freedom he has to rule the seas.

He becomes comfortable with his decision, hides in his quarter’s a lonely soul.

He is a heartless, heartless bastard and a complete coward.


End file.
